


in a spotlight mystery blue

by oryx



Category: GARO (TV), GARO: Yami o Terasu Mono
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15701745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: Enhou would rather not deal in the unexplained. But perhaps there was no choice, when the unexplained seems rather interested in her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snakelesbians](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakelesbians/gifts).



> for zali <3 im love you  
> 2nd part is forthcoming asap i swear.... and will definitely be more werewolf-y than this one hhh

  
There’s something unfathomable about this city.  
   
That’s not an admission she’s proud to own up to, of course. She’s always prided herself in being logical – the level-headed one, the one who tells others to stop daydreaming, to focus on what they can see right in front of them and forget the rest.  
   
But she’s also not so stupid as to ignore her baser instincts. And those have told her, from the very moment she first stepped off the train at Vol City Central Station four years ago, that something is at work in this place that is beyond her comprehension. She feels, sometimes, a gentle hum beneath the pavement. A pulse, might be more accurate. As if the streets were veins, carrying something much like blood to keep some great heart beating. The shadows seem a little too deep, on some nights. Back alley shortcuts seem to stretch, longer and more winding than they rightly should be.  
   
No one talks about it. She wonders if it’s out of nervousness, or if her senses are simply sharper than most.  
   
At the very least it doesn’t take some special attunement to notice how often people disappear. Into thin air, even – no corpses ever found, no obvious crime scenes to investigate. When a call comes in she can tell right away. Like this one tonight: a group of friends walking home from a club who had turned to find one of their number vanished without a trace. He’d been right there just a second ago.  
   
The City Guardians are required to respond to each and every potential abduction. But she knows this is futile, even as she peers around the entranceway of an empty warehouse three blocks from the location of the incident, her finger light on the trigger of her pistol. As she stalwartly searches ever nook and cranny of the place despite. She won’t find the kid here, nor will her squad in any of the locations they’d pinpointed.  
   
That boy is as good as gone.  
   
Enhou holsters her gun with an aggravated exhale, reaching for her comm device. “Nothing here,” she says. “Anything on your ends?”  
   
“Negative, captain,” comes the response from Fukui a few moments later, followed by a chorus of similar answers.  
   
“Right,” Enhou mutters. “Rendezvous back at the transport in ten. This is another one for the investigation team.”  
   
_Not that they’ll find anything, either._  
   
It bothers her, of course. Cuts her more deeply than she lets on to her subordinates. Her job is to defend this city and the people in it. Being unable to do so is infuriating, to put it mildly. Worse yet that the culprits behind these crimes might as well be ghosts. Without any faces or names of potential suspects to focus on, all that frustration simply sits and festers in the back of her mind, leaving a sour taste in her mouth. She’s left with no one to blame but herself and the nebulous strangeness of the city.  
   
Enhou turns, preparing to trek back to the transport, and it is then that she is struck – sudden, like a bolt of lightning rooting her to the spot – by the overwhelming sensation of being observed.  
   
Shoulders tensed, she glances slowly to the side.  
   
There is someone in the shadows of the nearby alleyway. Or maybe. Some _thing_ , might be more accurate. While about the height of a human, its shape is entirely unlike one’s. Animalistic, she thinks, like some hulking creature sitting on its haunches. She can see the shape of ears, a snout. But other than its vague silhouette, she can make nothing of it but its eyes, wide and unblinking, which reflect the glow of the streetlight like two polished silvery coins.  
   
Enhou doesn’t know how long she stands there, facing down this unnamable creature and listening to herself breathe in the silence.  
   
When her hand strays minutely for the holster of her gun, the beast finally blinks: once, slow, in a manner that seems somehow amused.  
   
A second later and it is turning tail, retreating into the alleyway and melting into the darkness.  
   
Enhou stares after it with her thumb resting against the metal of her pistol. Her pulse is rather loud in her ears until the moment she is certain it is well and truly gone, straining for any sound of its paws against the concrete. Even then, it takes her longer than she’d care to admit to move from the spot.  
   
(When she returns to the transport ten minutes past her own instruction, she can tell by the looks on their faces that her expression must be strange – pale, preoccupied and drawn.  
   
She’s grateful when none of them ask why.)  
   
  
   
  
   
“Wildlife?” Matsumoto pauses, beer bottle halfway to his lips, giving her a puzzled look. “I… guess there’s been a few incidents. You remember that bear that wandered into Sector 6, right? And there was that group of wild boars running around the outskirts of 2 a while back. Something on the mountain spooked them all the way down here, I guess.”  
   
Enhou drums her fingers against her thigh as she leans back in her seat, pressing her lips together thoughtfully. She knows Matsumoto hates when she brings up anything work-related when they’re off the clock, but she can’t possibly broach this subject in the training room or the mess hall.  
   
“What about… wolves?” she asks, cautious in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time.  
   
“…Wolves?” He blinks. “I mean. Wolves in general have been extinct in Japan for like a hundred years now. If a few still existed somehow I kinda doubt they’d be anywhere near any big cities.” A frown tugs at the corner of his mouth. “What’re you asking about that for, anyhow? Did you see something weird?”  
   
Enhou shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she says, grip tightening around the neck of her own beer bottle. “I don’t know what I saw. Maybe… I was just running on fumes or something. So tired I wasn’t seeing straight. But if it was real, then… ‘Wolf’ is the best description I can find for it. Bigger than a wolf should probably be, though. More like a monster.”  
   
Matsumoto is looking at her steadily. “That is pretty unbelievable,” he says. “Maybe. Maybe instead of you imagining things, it was… something else.” He hesitates before leaning across the table, lowering his voice and continuing: “You know how it is around here, Enhou. Maybe it was the city playing tricks on you.”  
   
She takes a swig of her beer; lets the cheap, bitter flavor sit on her tongue as she turns the possibilities over in her mind.  
   
“Yeah,” she says finally. “Maybe.”  
   
Matsumoto is generally a lightweight, but neither of them had felt like drinking much tonight, and with him still clear-headed they part ways outside the bar, Enhou lifting a hand as she turns around the side of the building, down the backstreet shortcut to her apartment complex.  
   
“You know,” a voice says, “I’d really prefer if you didn’t go blabbing to everyone about that sort of thing.”  
   
Enhou stops. Looks up.  
   
There is a woman peering down at her from the fire escape, leaning against the railing with her chin on her hand. Her light-coloured hair is pulled back, leaving two wavy locks to frame her heart-shaped face. Her clothes are strange and ornate, a multitude of charms and sigils seemingly sewn into the fabric. When she shifts a bit Enhou could swear she sees her eyes go reflective and silver before the moment ends and they are a warm brown again.  
   
“Can’t say I know what you mean,” Enhou tells her, inexplicable wariness prickling along her spine. “Or who the hell you are.”  
   
The woman sighs. She promptly vaults her way over the railing and lands, inhumanly light on her feet in front of Enhou, putting a hand on her hip and pursing her lips as she turns to look at her.  
   
“Don’t make me introduce myself, too,” she says. “The old man is going to lose it plenty if he finds out I even showed myself to someone.” She takes a step closer and tilts her head to the side. “Just a whim, I guess. After all this time, too. I wonder… what it is about you.” Before Enhou can react to that she is continuing: “Anyway, that little convo with your friend in there? I’d be grateful if you didn’t bring that up to anyone else.”  
   
Enhou can feel her eyes narrow. Her hand flexes at her side, as if it were reaching subconsciously for the gun she does not have at the moment. “Do you have me bugged or something?” she asks.  
   
“Bugged?” the stranger echoes. When she laughs, disbelieving, there’s something about the sound that makes a bit of Enhou’s tension unwind. “I don’t really have much use for that,” she says. She flicks the metal of her dangling earring with a smile. “I’ve got pretty sharp hearing, you know.”  
   
Enhou arches an eyebrow. ‘Sharp hearing’ doesn’t quite seem to cover it. “So, what? You don’t want me bringing up that… thing I saw?” Realization hits her suddenly, and she lunges out to grab the woman by the arm, staring intently into her eyes. “Did you see it, too? Do you know what it is?”  
   
The woman blinks. She seems taken aback to be touched, staring down at Enhou’s hand before meeting her eyes again.  
   
“I… I guess you could say that.”  
   
Enhou’s grip tightens. “You have to tell me what you know,” she demands. “People are disappearing in this city. If that creature is involved somehow – ”  
   
She breaks off as a look of utter contemptuous scorn and hurt (almost as if she were  _offended_ , but that can’t be right – ) twists the woman’s face. She shrugs her arm away with a ‘hmph.’  
   
“Of course that’s what you’d think,” she snaps. “You don’t know the first thing about this city. Just go back to your job, why don’t you? Forget about that thing you saw. Move on. It’ll be better for everyone, in the long run.”  
   
She turns sharp on her heel and stalks away before Enhou can so much as process her words.  
   
“Wait,” she starts to say, but the woman is already vanishing around the corner up ahead, and when Enhou rounds it herself she finds herself staring at a dead end. Nothing but three walls of dirty old brick with no other exits in sight.  
   
She’s beginning to wonder if it might be smarter to move away from this city. Take an easier, less baffling job somewhere else.  
   
(But she knows deep down that she cares too much, feels too much to ever abandon it.)  
   
  
   
  
   
Another disappearance. Another futile search.  
   
In the darkened basement level of the Third Street parking deck she grits her teeth, holstering her gun and taking off her cap to run a tired hand through her hair. Once again, her squad’s answers over the comms are all negative.  
   
The idea of trudging back to HQ with nothing to show for their efforts is starting to become intolerable. Her superiors’ disapproving expressions. The whispers of ‘are they just not very good, you think’ that she keeps hearing behind her back. The leader of the investigation team – that fucker Nomura – looking smug as yet another case is assigned to them. As if  _they’ve_  turned up anything yet, either.  
   
Looks like tonight will be another round of pummeling her frustrations into the punching bag in the training room.  
   
She glances up with a ‘tsk,’ and –  
   
Sees a pair of silvery eyes staring at her from the shadows.  
   
Enhou’s pulse spikes as she freezes in place. The vague outline of the creature is the same as the last time. Just sitting there, observing her in calm silence.  
   
In a manner that’s rather nonthreatening, now that she considers it. Intelligent, even. As if she were staring at something that knows more she does.  
   
“You,” she says. Falters, but soldiers on: “You aren’t just a wild animal, are you?”  
   
Those eyes blink once, slowly.  
   
“You understand me?”  
   
Another blink.  
   
Enhou lets out a breath. Is she really doing this right now? Standing here trying to communicate with a mysterious shadow creature?  
   
And yet somehow it doesn’t feel as laughable and surreal as it should.  
   
“If you aren’t just an animal,” she says. “Then what are you?”  
   
The creature seems almost to hesitate, then. A long moment later and it clearly makes up its mind, stepping out of the darkness and into the light.  
   
It  _is_  a wolf, is Enhou’s first, slightly triumphant thought. But never, in any photo or video or textbook, has she ever seen one quite like this – as massive as she’d thought it to be, its head perhaps about level with her shoulders. Its fur is a light brown, startlingly sleek and beautiful against its dingy surroundings. Its eyes don’t lose that silvery shine even as it begins to move closer, closing the gap between them.  
   
Every ounce of Enhou’s logic, every minute of training she’s ever gone through is screaming at her to either fight or run.  
   
But even so, something keeps her there, as it stops not even a few arms lengths away from her, and –  
   
Inclines its head to the side. As if it were asking her to follow as it turns and pads away towards the ground level of the deck.  
   
“Captain?” a voice is saying over the comms. “Captain, are you there? Did something happen?”  
   
Without taking her eyes off the retreating wolf, she lifts the receiver and presses the transmission button.  
   
“Nothing really,” she says, keeping her voice as cool as she can manage. “You all head back to HQ without me. There’s something I need to look into.”  
   
  
   
She had wondered, briefly, how such a large creature could possibly stalk the streets of a crowded metropolitan area with no one noticing. Now, she thinks she understands (as much as she  _can_  understand any of this). Even in places where there are no deep shadows the wolf seems to vanish mysteriously, behind a parked car or a fence, only to reappear again moments later, as if it were blipping in and out of existence.  
   
Enhou follows its odd path at a distance, wariness still keeping her steps cautious. It leads her down a twisting route of alleyways, finally arriving at the back door of a rather unassuming office complex, where it turns to give her an expectant look before nudging the door open and slipping inside.  
   
Well. She’s come this far, she supposes. Nothing to do but keep going.  
   
She sees its tail disappear up the steps, and so follows it – up, and further still, until she finds herself on the highest landing, the door to the roof held open by a doorstop, the cool autumn breeze blowing in through it. The wolf sits in the center of the roof, looking out across the few night-lit blocks of city that are visible from here, a kind of pensiveness about it that shouldn’t be possible in something non-human.  
   
“So?” Enhou says. “Did you bring me here for a reason?”  
   
For a time, it remains motionless.  
   
And then it ducks its head low, and as she watches, its shape begins to unmistakably change right before her eyes. It seems to grow smaller, fur receding to reveal skin, and she can hear an awful snapping and cracking, like bones changing and reforming beneath the surface. Claws shrink into fingers. Ears shift their placement.  
   
The sounds of the creature altering itself fade away little by little into silence. The person who was just the wolf straightens, the notches of their spine aligning, rolling their shoulders and stretching their arms over their head before turning back to look at Enhou with an expression that reads like a challenge.  
   
“Well, there you go,” says the woman she met outside the bar the other day. “Now you know the truth. Part of it, at least. Are you satisfied now?”  
   
There is a long stretch of nothing, in which the two of them stare at one another.  
   
Somehow, Enhou finds herself nodding.  
   
“Right,” she murmurs. “Right.”  
   
She’d imagined plenty of realities that might be lurking beneath the surface of this city – an ancient cursed battlefield plaguing it with restless spirits, or some kind of cult partaking in a dark ritual. But this? Had not been among the options she’d considered.  
   
She scrubs a hand across her face, letting out a shaky breath. When she glances up again the woman is still standing there. Still very much “was a wolf until a minute ago.” And still very much naked, too.  
   
She can’t say she’s ever been unhappy to have a beautiful woman naked in front of her, but this is pushing things a bit.  
   
The wolf woman is wandering over to the rooftop cooling unit, though, reaching behind it and pulling out a trash bag, which she empties out, revealing it to have a small pile of clothing inside.  
   
“Sorry for leading you all the way over here,” she says as she pulls on a pair of leggings and a simple white blouse. “This was my closest spare outfit.”  
   
Somehow, it’s as if those absurdly casual words cause something to snap into place in Enhou’s mind. So she’s living in a city with at least one wolf person in it. That’s strange, but it could be stranger. (She has a feeling it  _will_  get stranger, so she’d better wrap her head around the basics now. That might as well be rule number one of running a tactical op.)  
   
“Do you… want my jacket?” she offers. The wind is brisk up here, cutting and sharp. Those thin clothes she’s putting on won’t keep much of it at bay. And Enhou herself has never been much bothered by the cold.  
   
Again, the woman gives her that startled, wide-eyed look, hands gone still on the buttons of her shirt.  
   
“I… okay,” she says.  
   
Enhou sheds the jacket of her uniform, handing it over to the wolf girl, who takes it from her tentatively, as if it were some kind of treasure, pulling it around her shoulders with a small, pleased smile.  
   
“No one’s ever offered me their coat before,” she murmurs. Her smile broadens into a toothy grin, and even now in human form there’s a sharpness to her canines. “I’m Rian, by the way.”  
   
“Rian,” she echoes. A name makes this feel even realer. “I’m – ”  
   
“Oh, I know who you are, Captain Enhou.” Her grin fades a bit. “To tell the truth, we always kind of seem to end up in the same places, you and me. You tend to be pretty close, y’know, when you’re out hunting around for clues. You’re just looking on the wrong side.” She pauses; chews on her lip for a moment before continuing: “I kept thinking maybe… it meant something. You being there, wherever I went. I kept wondering… what it would be like, if you knew about me, too.”  
   
There’s a lot Enhou could address there – a lot she isn’t sure how to address – and so she asks the simplest question first.  
   
“The wrong side?”  
   
Rian nods slowly. “There’s another world that runs parallel to this one. Makai, we call it. Most of the time the two exist separately. But there are places where the border between them is especially thin. Vol City just happens to be one of those places.”  
   
Enhou blinks. She’d been right. This is getting much stranger in no time at all.  
   
“And you… can switch between the two?” she says, thinking back to how the wolf had seemed to shift in and out of reality itself.  
   
Rian smiles again, leaning in with a gleam in her eye. “You really are pretty sharp, Captain. My kind were given the ability to walk between worlds long ago. That and a ‘holy mission to protect humanity from whatever else might find its way through.’ That’s how the story goes, anyway.”  
   
Enhou stares at her blankly. “Your kind?” she says. “How many of you are there?”  
   
Rian’s answering laugh is as unhelpful as it is concerning.  
   
  
   
  
   
She tells the rest on the way to meet her “pack” – that as far as she knows, they are the only wolfen (her word) in Vol City. This is their territory, their assigned area to keep safe, and they would know if anyone else had taken up residence.  
   
“Rogues do come through sometimes,” she says as they turn down the streetlamp-lit main path of the central park, their shadows stretching long in front of them. “But no wolf is responsible for what’s happening here, that’s for sure.”  
   
“Then what is? You seem like you have some idea.”  
   
The corner of Rian’s mouth curves downward into a scowl. “Demons.”  
   
“Demons.”  
   
“Mmhmm.”  
   
Enhou is at the point where the idea that demons have been abducting all those people is beginning to seem entirely plausible. “Is this… some particular type of demon?”  
   
Rian’s frown of distaste deepens. “Let’s just say… That everyone they take wants to be taken.”  
   
Enhou can feel her brow knit together as she considers those words, but before she can ask for clarification Rian is saying “it’s the one right ahead.” There directly across from the park is a faded brick row house, the shutters painted black, of all colours, a strange mark – a triangle imposed upon a circle – seemingly etched into the door by the blade of a knife.  
   
She’s walked past this stretch of street countless times, she knows. But never once has she seen this house before.  
   
“I’m home,” Rian calls as they step inside. It’s a cluttered disaster zone, is the simplest way Enhou might put it. Old, dusty books with faded, inscrutable titles are piled along the walls in such multitudes that they form their own hills and valleys. Every flat surface is laden with strange little objects, some of them recognizable – brass compasses and telescopes, music boxes and paperweights – but others beyond her ability to guess their use.  
   
“Sorry about the mess,” Rian says, picking her way through it all with a noise of annoyance. “We keep trying to throw things out, but the old man won’t let us. Seems to think this junk could come in handy someda – ”  
   
She is cut off by the sound of thudding footsteps on the floor above. A person appears on the stairwell a moment later: a young man with spiked hair, a golden chain around his neck sporting a charm with the same symbol as the one carved into the door. His face splits into a grin, eyes lighting up as he looks down at Enhou.  
   
“I knew it,” he says. “I could tell it was a human.”  
   
He’s vaulting over the railing a moment later (she’s starting to sense a trend with these people), landing in a space between stacks of books in a way that seems practiced. A second later and he’s up close in her face, studying her as if she were a strange curiosity, and then – he sniffs her.  
   
“Huh,” he says. “Beneath the typical human smell, you do smell pretty good. Like burnt leaves, kinda. You were right, Rian.”  
   
Enhou arches an eyebrow at Rian, who presses her fingertips to her temple tiredly.  
   
“Really wish you would learn when to keep your mouth shut,” she mutters. She grabs her friend by the collar and yanks him back. “This is Ryuga. Sorry about him, too. He hasn’t really learned his manners yet.”  
   
“You are… a wolf, too, then?”  
   
“Sure am,” Ryuga says, still grinning, and Enhou finds herself smiling a bit in return despite the oddness of this interaction. More like an overgrown puppy, she thinks.  
   
“You’re lucky Burai’s out right now,” Ryuga says to Rian. “You haven’t even told him the basics yet, and now you’re bringing her right into the house.”  
   
“Listen,” Rian sighs. “That’s…” She hesitates for a moment before seeming to give up. “Gods, I don’t even have any excuses. I don’t know what he’s going to do. But it’s too late at this point anyhow. Not like I can un-tell someone.” A resigned sort of pause. “Are Takeru and Aguri downstairs?”  
   
“Yeah. C’mon,” he says to Enhou. “You should meet them, too, as long as you’re here.”  
   
The basement of the house is rather eerie – dimly lit by what look to be old-fashioned oil lamps, and perhaps even more cluttered than the floor above. There are two people amid the stacks of books and papers, the blond-haired one muttering to himself as he frowns at a moth-eaten scroll. The one that she takes to be Aguri from the way Rian had spoken of him looks up as they approach and promptly drops his magnifying glass on to the map he’s poring over. His glasses slip slightly down the bridge of his nose.  
   
“Rian,” he says slowly. “Please don’t tell me you brought that human here.”  
   
“She’s literally right in front of you, Aguri,” Rian says, giving him a thin-lipped smile. “We’re sort of past that point.”  
   
He frowns back at her. “You know I’m simply concerned about the wellbeing of our kind, which you seem to have – ”  
   
“Holy shit, this is her?” The blond, Takeru, has forgotten the old text he was puzzling over and has materialized in front of Enhou, holding out his hand (only one, she notices; his other arm seems to have been amputated at the elbow) with a grin. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”  
   
Enhou shakes his hand and finds him reluctant to let go.  
   
“You’re a real ten outta ten beauty, you know that?” he says. “You have a boyfriend?”  
   
Beside her, Rian groans.  
   
Enhou can feel her lips twitch. She applies pressure to the kid’s hand, digging her fingers in until his face pales and he’s forced to pull away with a wince and a nervous laugh.  
   
“Do wolves usually date humans?” she asks.  
   
“Well that’s – that’s the whole appeal of it,” Takeru says, shaking out his hand and struggling to regain his composure. “It never works out with human girls, ‘cause I can’t tell them anything, y’know? But you’ve already got the low down. Nothing standing in our way.”  
   
“Mmhmm.” Enhou gives Rian a sidelong look. “What a fun little family you have.”  
   
Rian has lifted her eyes to the ceiling as if pleading for some divine assistance here. “That’s one way of putting it,” she mutters. “Springing them on you like this is a little unfair, but. Things are kind of dire at the moment.”  
   
“I believe I’ve located a pattern, at the very least,” Aguri says, pointing to the map in front of him – a strange, ancient-looking thing, the inscriptions on it written in a language divorced just enough from Japanese that she can’t hope to read it. The vague shape of it seems to indicate a map of Vol City, but the layout is unlike any city map she knows, with streets where streets should not be, intricate symbols where there should be buildings. Aguri taps a finger against one of the markers he’s placed. “If we consider the last disappearance was here…” He slides his fingertip to another spot. “Then they have occurred roughly in a circle, with this location here as the center point. I feel that could be a hideout of sorts for these creatures.”  
   
“I mean… What’s even there?” Takeru asks. He glances around at the others. “Anybody know?”  
   
Enhou has pulled up an actual normal human map of the city on her phone, and she holds it against the bizarre wolf map to compare the two.  
   
“There’s a highrise being built there,” she says, and everyone turns to stare at her. “Do you really not know? It’s kind of hard to miss. Construction’s been stalled for ages now.”  
   
“I’m always on the flipside when I patrol over there,” Ryuga says, as if it should be obvious. He’s sitting backwards in a chair, chin resting on his arms. “Like… for some reason I just get the feeling I should be.”  
   
“Ah,” Rian says, her eyes wide. “Same here.”  
   
Takeru thirds the sentiment as Aguri pinches the bridge of his nose. “Really? You’re all most likely being compelled by dark magic, and no one ever thought to bring this up?”  
   
Enhou is struck, suddenly, by the fact that she is surrounded by wolf people as they discuss dark magic. She wonders if this should feel more peculiar than it does. The casual everyday vibe of this scene seems to be lulling her into a sense of normalcy.  
   
“Gods, if they’re really capable of that, we’ll need backup. We have to report this to the Enclave tonight, we – ”  
   
“Honestly,” Enhou says, “if we know where they are, then why don’t we storm the place right now? No point dicking around.”  
   
Aguri blinks at her as Takeru nudges Ryuga and whispers “I’m digging this chick.” She can see Rian smile slightly out of the corner of her eye.  
   
“Not that simple, unfortunately,” she says, leaning back against the table, drumming her fingernails against the edge of it. “Our power corresponds to the moon and the stars. We’re only at full strength when things are aligned in certain ways. Next ideal time is,” here she rummages through a stack of books, procuring a small leather-bound notebook, flipping it open and frowning at it, “four days from now.”  
   
She holds it out for Enhou to see. The page is covered in complicated scribblings of moon phases, equations and diagrams of constellations, the writing filling even the margins.  
   
“You don’t say,” Enhou murmurs. “Seems a bit inconvenient.”  
   
“A bit, yeah. But usually we don’t have to take on anything quite so powerful. These things are… an outlier.”  
   
A quiet falls over the room as they all consider this.  
   
“So you’re offering to help us out?” Takeru says, sidling up closer to Enhou. “I dunno how much a human could do, to be honest.”  
   
Enhou levels him with a cool look. “Oh, really? Care to shake hands again and be done with it, then?”  
   
He swallows hard and backs away a bit as Ryuga barks out a laugh.  
   
“You shouldn’t count out humans,” he says. “They can be pretty determined when they want to be. You know you could – ”  
   
He halts abruptly mid-sentence, and Enhou watches as he gradually begins to look every inch a dog with its hackles raised in fearful anxiety. Around her, the others’ expressions shift into much the same. They all turn back, and Enhou follows their gazes to the stairs behind them, where a middle-aged man is suddenly standing, looking down at them with indescribable weariness written across his face.  
   
“Ah,” Ryuga says softly. “Burai.”  
   
“Rian,” the man says. “You care to explain to me why there’s a human in my basement?”  
   
Rian looks very much as if she’d rather be anywhere but here right now. “That’s… How do you know it was me?”  
   
Burai glances from her to Enhou and then back again. “Call it a hunch,” he says. He descends down the steps and comes to stand in front of Enhou, studying her face as she stares defiantly back. “I always knew one of these stupid pups would get properly mixed up with a human at some point. Never thought any of them would be bold enough to bring them right into my house, though. You are?”  
   
“Enhou. Captain of the City Guardians tactical division.”  
   
“Well that explains some of it, at least.” He gives Rian another pointed look before circling around to examine the map. “You want to help fight these things, Miss Enhou? Takeru’s right, you know. They’re a bit beyond a human’s abilities. A normal human, at least. They can turn most of your kind into willing slaves easily enough.”  
   
“I think I can manage,” Enhou says. “Whatever they are, they’ve caused me some real grief. And I’ve never liked to just count on others to get things done.”  
   
“A woman of principle, huh? You’ll need it.” A long pause, in which his resignation is plain. “The next opportune time is what? Four days from now? If you’re with us then,” he says to Enhou, “I won’t do anything to stop you. But if you die, don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning. Don’t want your ghost on my conscience.”  
   
Enhou smiles. “I’ll take that into consideration.”  
   
  
   
“He was just keeping it together because you were there,” Rian mutters as they make their way back up the steps. “He’s absolutely going to rip into me later.”  
   
Enhou pauses in the middle of the book chasms of the foyer. “Seems a bit nice, actually. Having a father figure to get angry with you.”  
   
She wonders why she finds herself missing her own old man at the oddest times.  
   
“Father?” Rian echoes. She spins around, looking aghast. “No way. Definitely not! He isn’t anything like that.”  
   
“He’s a pain in the ass is what he is,” Takeru says, keeping his voice low as he edges past them. He brightens a moment later, adding: “You’re definitely gonna be there four days from now, right, Captain Enhou-chan? Fighting side-by-side with a beautiful woman…” He places his hand over his heart, sighing dramatically. “Can’t wait to experience that.”  
   
Rian purses her lips. “What am I, then?”  
   
“You’re Rian,” he says simply. He returns his attention to Enhou and grins, lifting his hand in a salute before turning off into one of the adjacent rooms and disappearing from view (though not before tripping over a book pile and cursing under his breath).  
   
“You can ignore him,” Rian says once he’s gone. “He’ll give up with his obnoxious womanizer act once he’s been shot down a few times.”  
   
Enhou crosses her arms with a thoughtful hum. “Who’s to say I’m not interested? I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for persistent boys.”  
   
Rian stares at her, startled in a way that’s rather cute, she can’t help but think.  
   
“…I’m kidding,” Enhou tells her, barely managing to bite back a laugh. “Not that I’m entirely opposed to men, but. He’s not exactly my type.”  
   
“Oh,” Rian says softly. She seems to recover in an instant, her usual coyness falling back into place. “So? What is your type, Captain?”  
   
Enhou pretends to ponder this. “Maybe… People who look good wearing my jackets?”  
   
Rian’s composure is once again gone as quick as it came, glancing down at herself and then back up with wide eyes, lips parted slightly like she’s trying to think of a response to that but cannot. She attempts unsuccessfully to smooth it all away as Ryuga emerges from the basement a moment later, stretching his arms behind his head with a yawn.  
   
“You heading back to your place?” he asks Enhou, who drags her eyes away from Rian to glance back at him. “Want an escort? I’ve got a patrol to do anyhow.”  
   
“An escort? You all are giving me the VIP treatment here. Might go to my head.”  
   
Ryuga’s smile is broad and genuine. “It’s just been fun, I guess. Meeting you. We spend all our time protecting humans, but we never really get to know any of them.”  
   
And at that he hunches forward and lets the transformation take hold.  
   
“Ah, your clothes – ” Rian starts, but it’s too late. The terrible cracking of bones being rearranged and reformed that Enhou had expected to hear is accompanied by the tearing of fabric, as well, as the shape of a person grows and shifts into that of the wolf.  
   
“That’s the fifth outfit he’s ruined in like two months,” Rian sighs, but her words barely register at the moment. Enhou had assumed, foolishly perhaps, that the size of these creatures (that and the eerie quicksilver eyes) were the only things distinguishing them from actual wolves. Rian’s brown coat had given her expectations, maybe.  
   
But as far as she knows, actual wolves are not a soft shade of gold.  
   
“He’s a bit of a rarity,” Rian says, as if she were sensing her thoughts. “Never met anyone else with that colouring.”  
   
Wolf Ryuga shakes himself as if to settle properly into his altered form, padding closer and knocking over several stacks of books in the process. Enhou notices black in his coat as well – subtle markings around his paws, beneath his chin and down his back. He stops right in front of her, flicking his ears in a manner that seems rather pleased (enjoying her reaction, maybe) before taking a step around her and vanishing into nothing.  
   
Enhou blinks.  
   
“That really is… sudden, isn’t it,” she says.  
   
“Burai hates it when we switch over inside the house,” Rian says. “Of course we all do it anyway.” She grins. “Want to get moving?”  
   
It’s late enough at this point that it’s almost early, few still out and about, and so Ryuga simply lopes along ahead of them as they take the twisting backstreets to Enhou’s apartment. He lacks the grace of Rian’s wolf form, shifting between realities without bothering to cleverly disguise the transition, often in the middle of following a scent along the pavement. His wagging tail does nothing to dispel the still-vivid image of a very large puppy.  
   
“I’m sorry,” Rian says suddenly. “About the other day.”  
   
Enhou glances over to find her worrying her lip with her teeth again, turning it a bitten red, the collar of Enhou’s jacket turned up against the chill. “When I snapped at you, I mean. I guess I’d built up this idea of you in my head. What our first conversation might be like.” She huffs out a laugh. “I imagined you would already know about us, somehow.  
   
“But. I realized that was pretty unfair. So I thought I’d try again. Earlier… it was more than just a whim, you know? All those times I saw you look frustrated… They kind of hit me all at once. I thought ‘wouldn’t it be so much easier, if we could just work together’? The humans who are strong and smart and resourceful, like you… Why should they be kept in the dark?”  
   
Enhou can feel a smile tug at her mouth. “Strong, smart,  _and_  resourceful? You’re sure I’m all of those?”  
   
Rian stops beneath the yellow glow of a streetlight; turns to look at her with amusement plain on her face, eyelashes casting shadows down her cheeks. “I’m pretty perceptive,” she says. “I think I’ve got you figured out.”  
   
“Really? I’ll have to work on figuring you out in return, then.”  
   
She’s walking away before she can see Rian’s reaction, a lightness to her step that hasn’t been there in quite a while.  
   
Outside her apartment complex, Rian shrugs the uniform jacket off and hands it back to her, her fingers startlingly warm when they brush, and Enhou finds herself wondering if she’d truly needed the jacket at all. (But she’d looked so pleased to receive it. That had been real enough.)  
   
“I believe in you, obviously,” Rian says. “But you could still stand to know a bit more before you go running headlong into a demon’s nest.” She taps her chin, contemplative, before an idea seems to strike her. “I’ll drop by sometime in the next few days, okay? I’ll give you a lesson or two. Make a real honorary wolf out of you.”  
   
At that she smiles; waggles her fingers in a semblance of a wave, heading back across the empty street the way they had came, the great gold wolf trailing silently behind her. The both of them stop in the mouth of the opposite alleyway to turn and look at her with two pairs of reflective silver eyes, before they fade away into the shadows and Enhou is left alone to stare after them, only the distant sound of a car turning over bringing her back to herself.  
   
When she tugs her jacket back on, she finds that it smells faintly of a flower she can’t name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm. been a little longer than i intended...... but finally, here we are. the exciting (?) wolfy conclusion  
> co-starring some non-yamitera characters, playing the roles of sort-of-themselves-but-not-quite

There’s no one else in the training room this evening. Uzaki and Honda left a half hour ago, making their usual jibes about how she’s making the rest of them look bad whenever she spends all her free time here.  
   
“You gotta give us a chance to catch up with you, Cap,” Honda had said.  
   
“Maybe in another fifty years,” she’d replied.  
   
Now, it’s all quiet, the only sounds her own steady breathing. When it’s like this, and she’s counting repetitions in her head, it feels sometimes like slipping into another world. (She wonders if this is how it is for the wolves. The trance-like distance from yourself before finally snapping back into place. Except they do it so easily, so quick. She wonders if it’s something you get used to, with enough practice.)  
   
She counts one hundred, lying back out of her sit-up to find Rian’s smiling face peering down at her.  
   
Enhou blinks. She hadn’t even heard her approach. She pushes herself up slowly, reaching for her towel to drape around her neck, turning back to raise an eyebrow. Rian is wearing a City Guardians uniform and cap, an entirely unfitting match with her perfect mascara and the pinkish glossy sheen she’s gone with for her lips today, but without looking too closely she would undoubtedly pass as any other cadet.  
   
“Where did you get that?” Enhou asks.  
   
“Oh, I have my ways,” Rian says, her smile turning secretive. “You’ve probably worked this bit out, but we can only walk between worlds in our other form. And that can be a bit of a hassle, for… certain reasons. Helps to have alternatives, when you need to get in certain places.”  
   
“Impersonating a Guardian officer is a criminal offense, you know.”  
   
Rian gives her a coy look. “Oh? Are you going to arrest me, Captain?”  
   
Enhou can feel her lips twitch as she gets to her feet. “Feel like I wouldn’t have much luck keeping you anywhere you didn’t want to be.”  
   
“Well. You’re right about that,” Rian says, and for a moment her expression seems to turn a little soft before she’s tossing Enhou her jacket and saying: “I’ve got some info for you. Come with me.”  
   
  
   
  
   
“Incubi and succubi.”  
   
“…What?”  
   
Rian pauses on the staircase and turns back to look at her with a displeased set to her lips. “I did some research. Into human terms, for the things we’re going to be facing. The wolfen word for them isn’t one that your kind uses. And the legends aren’t  _exactly_  the same, but… They’re close enough.”  
   
Enhou stares at her. Mythology has never been something she’s given much thought to, but those words do ring a bell.  
   
“An incubus? As in… the ones that seduce people?”  
   
“That’s a way of putting it. These things tend to show up in humans’ dreams. They charm people in the dream world, give them what they want, make them ‘fall in love.’ When they wake up they don’t really remember. Not on the surface, at least. It’s like subliminal brainwashing, almost. And then, finally… the slightest trigger in the real world sends them right into those things’ hands.” Rian makes a face. “As for how they steal life energy from their victims… You can imagine.”  
   
Enhou puts a hand on the railing. Takes a deep breath and lets it out.  
   
“So that’s why there’s never any signs of a struggle,” she murmurs. The deep breath isn’t really helping. She can already feel anger twisting hot in her chest. All this time and frustration, all these people missing because of some bullshit demon creatures that shouldn’t conceivably exist.  
   
“Normally these things aren’t much of a problem for us,” Rian is saying. “But these two… are different. I’m not sure what makes them so much more powerful than the rest. They were created via stronger magic than we’re used to, maybe.  
   
“They might try to get to you, too,” she continues. She gives Enhou a thoughtful look. “They’ll work their charms outside of dreams when they have to. But you seem like you’re pretty hard to sway.”  
   
Enhou smiles, thin-lipped, a hint of humor breaking through a crack in her irritation. “I’m known pretty well for it, yeah.”  
   
Rian must like this rooftop, she thinks, as they step out on to it again. The view is even more interesting tonight, with a strange fog rolling in around the edges of the city, smudging away its most distant buildings, only a few of their brightest lights visible through the haze.  
   
“You’re used to fighting humans, I’m sure. Probably pretty good at it.” Rian nods to herself as she takes off her cap, as she starts to unbutton the jacket of her stolen Guardians uniform. “But fighting demons is something else. If you can react to my movements, then maybe you might have a chance.”  
   
She’s got that glint in her eye as she tugs her shirt over her head.  
   
A minute later and Enhou finds herself flat on her back on the hard cement, the breath briefly knocked from her lungs, the wolf looming over her with one massive paw on her shoulder, a look of something bordering on amusement on her face as she holds her there.  
   
“…Alright,” Enhou manages. “Maybe… I could use a bit more training.”  
   
The wolf makes a soft rumbling noise in the back of her throat that sounds rather like a laugh.  
   
Unthinking, Enhou puts a hand in the soft fur at the scruff of her neck as she hauls herself back to her feet. She blinks down at it; lets the hand sit there, curling her fingers into the warmth. There’s something about standing next to a creature like this, touching her like someone might touch a pet dog, that really drives home the situation she’s gotten herself into. Mostly, it’s the fact that it doesn’t feel all that strange anymore. If anything, it’s reassuring. To know that something like this exists in the world. That it’s on the side of humanity.  
   
She releases her hold on the wolf, and those silvery eyes catch hers, an ear pricking up as if to ask if she’s ready to try again.  
   
Enhou nods; settles back into a defensive stance as the creature once again slips away into the shadows of the rooftop.  
   
After the fourth time she’s been lunged at, she begins to feel it. Her senses sharpening. Her eyes gradually becoming fast enough to track the wolf’s movements, her ears able to better pick up the quiet sounds of its paws touching the concrete. And something else, too. A feeling in the air. As if the space around the wolf were warped and wavering. Maybe it’s the same for any creature that can step into another world.  
   
She feels the wolf spring at her, and whips around in time to meet her, unholstering her pistol in an instant to level it right between those eyes.  
   
The wolf stops. For a long moment they stay there, silently staring at one another, until finally the wolf sits back on her haunches, looking pleased, her tail thumping against the ground. Enhou re-holsters her gun in turn, a faint smile tugging at her mouth.  
   
“I had a feeling you’d get the hang of it,” Rian says, once she’s shifted back, tugging her stolen pants and boots back on. Enhou finds herself observing the way her hair falls over her shoulders, loose and messy now, leading her eye to the dip at the bottom of her spine, before it’s hidden from view as she shrugs the undershirt and jacket on, too. She turns around with an inquisitive look. “Want a drink to celebrate?”  
   
The drink in question turns out to be a flask of what seems to be cinnamon-flavored whiskey that she has hidden in her pocket.  
   
“I usually go for fancier drinks, just to put it out there. But sometimes… You just need something stronger.”  
   
Enhou can’t argue with that. She’s been kindly offered the first swig, and the warm burn of it in the back of her throat is genuinely pleasant, sitting up here in the night air like they are, dangling their legs precariously into the empty air over the edge of the building. She feels like a teenager again. In all the good ways and none of the bad.  
   
“Did you have any friends who were girls growing up?” Rian asks, out of the blue.  
   
Enhou ponders this. “Not many,” she says, after a moment of thought. “I was kind of tomboy, if you can imagine it.”  
   
Rian laughs at that.  
   
“Had a couple girlfriends in junior high and high school, though.” When Rian seems not to get what she means, she holds up her pinky finger. “You know. In the dating sense. I think it was more a novelty thing for most of them. But we had fun either way.”  
   
“Girlfriends,” Rian echoes. She lets the word sit in the air as if she were studying it. “That seems… nice.”  
   
Enhou looks at her steadily, at the wistful set to her expression in profile, the thoughtful downward turn of her mouth.  
   
“Okay, question time for you, too.” She passes the whiskey to her and shifts her gaze outward, to the pattern of lights on in the apartment building a block over, the wingtips of one of the tallest Goddess Statues visible just behind it. “Do you only protect this city because it’s your duty?”  
   
“…At first I did,” Rian admits. “But now I think I’m warming up to the place a bit. I actually really want to keep it safe. Learning through example, maybe.”  
   
Enhou glances over to find a smile flickering across her face before she takes a sip.  
   
“It’s not like I just showed up wanting to protect everyone, either. But it just… felt more like a home than any other place ever did. Maybe  _because_  it’s so strange here.” She pauses, pensive. “All this time I thought it bothered me, but… I think I actually really like the weirdness around this place. Gives it character. Makes it feel… more alive. And the people are good here. Or. Enough of them are.”  
   
Rian passes the flask back to her with a nod, their fingers brushing. It’s warm from her lips as Enhou takes another swig.  
   
“I just think it’s nice, how much you care about this city,” Rian says, leaning back on her hands. “Even without knowing what was happening here, you kept trying. It’s an admirable trait to have. If I’d been born a human, I don’t know… if I’d have had that same tenacity.  
   
“Just… to warn you in advance,” she continues slowly. “When you fight with us two days from now… We might be a little different than what you’ve seen so far.”  
   
Enhou pauses in the middle of handing the flask back again. “Different how?”  
   
“Well, I told you about our power. How it gets stronger at certain times, when things are aligned just right. So it only makes sense that we’d change our appearance a bit, too.” She bites her lip, drumming her fingers against the ledge. “I just think it might be kind of alarming for a human to see, if they weren’t prepared for it. And with how we tend to get more… animalistic, too.”  
   
Enhou mulls over the implications behind that in uneasy silence for a moment before shaking her head as if to clear those thoughts away. It’s futile dwelling on the details at this point.  
   
“You trying to scare me out of this?”  
   
“Obviously not,” Rian says with a pout. “Just being courteous, is all.” She snatches the whiskey back with a smile. “I don’t think you scare so easily, anyhow.”  
   
  
   
  
   
The air  _does_  feel different, on the day they plan to strike. Staticky and strange. There’s a smell blanketing the city that she later identifies as ozone, as if unseen lightning were gathering and gathering behind the overcast clouds.  
   
She watches the sky through the window on the upper floor of the wolf house. She’s been instructed not to touch anything as Burai hunts through the clutter, finally shuffling aside a stack of papers to reveal an ancient-looking padlocked trunk underneath. Inside are weapons – curved, serrated knives, gleaming swords with ornate hilts, and guns, too. It’s one of these that Burai hands to her: a small pistol unlike any she’s ever handled, with an intricate design spiraling along its barrel and a beaded charm hanging from its handle.  
   
“We don’t have much use for weapons, obviously,” Burai says. “Can’t really say where these even came from. Leftover from older times when wolves and humans used to cooperate, maybe. Either way, it should serve you well enough. As long as you have the proper bullets, that is.” He opens a side drawer of the trunk to reveal a silver ammo case, which he also presses into Enhou’s hand. “Now, come on. Let’s hear what plan those stupid pups have thought up.”  
   
The plan, it seems, is that there is no plan.  
   
“So, what?” Burai raises an eyebrow. “You’re just going to run in there and hope for the best?”  
   
Aguri adjusts his glasses, clearing his throat. “Obviously it’s not ideal, but considering the opponent…”  
   
“Best to just hit em hard with everything we’ve got,” Ryuga finishes with a grin.  
   
“ _Considering the opponent_ ,” Burai echoes, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly, “they might not even show themselves to a bunch of idiots storming headlong into their territory.”  
   
“What’s the alternative, old man?” Takeru asks. “One of us goes in ahead as bait? Y’think they’d fall for a glamour like the lesser ones do? They’ll know who we are either way. They’re not gonna bite for a wolf.”  
   
“But they would for a human, right?” Enhou says, and they all turn to stare at her.  
   
She expects Rian to laugh, to look subtly pleased at the boldness of this suggestion, but instead her expression darkens in an instant. “No way,” she says. There’s an intensity to her voice that she’s never heard before. “Definitely not.”  
   
Enhou frowns back at her. “I thought you believed in me.”  
   
“I do! I just.” She’s starting to pace, arms folded tight across her chest. “It was supposed to be you backing us up! Not going in there alone.”  
   
Enhou shrugs a shoulder. “It’s the best option here, I think. They go after my kind, so I’ll offer myself up. When they’re preoccupied, you all make your move. With any luck, I might even weaken them first. Simple.”  
   
The wolves exchange glances.  
   
“You have to understand,” Aguri says. “That it goes against our mission, to put a human in such obvious danger like this.”  
   
“But on the other hand,” Takeru says, smiling wide, lifting his hand and his non-existent hand as if to say ‘what can you do?’ “Sounds like it might be fun.”  
   
  
   
  
   
Up close, the highrise is a more suspicious sight than she remembers it being. It looks basically completed, with only the skeletal metal frame of the two uppermost floors giving any indication that it’s still under construction. There’s something about the reflective black windows that gives the indication that someone could be standing behind one of them, staring out.  
   
“This is weird,” Ryuga mutters. “I seriously never paid any attention to this place. How did I not notice it?”  
   
“They got us good, the bastards.”  
   
The wolves have been just subtly  _off_  since they left the house. She turns back now to find them all breathing more heavily than they should be, their eyes all glinting silver when they turn at just the right angle. Ryuga’s hands keep clenching and unclenching at his sides. The strange, electric air is starting to affect them, it seems. As if something dormant had been sparked to life.  
   
“How about this,” she says. “You give me… fifteen minutes. Then come in after me. Hopefully you’ll hear a gunshot before then as a cue. But if not…” She trails off, leaving the unspoken implication hovering in the space between them.  
   
“Man, you really are a wild chick,” Takeru says with a laugh. “Sounds good to me.”  
   
Rian’s face is drawn again, her jaw tight with tension. “You know I don’t like it, but. If any human could face them down, I guess it would be you.” She falters before reaching out to put a hand on Enhou’s arm, gripping tight, her palm radiating an uncanny warmth. “You’ll… be careful, right?”  
   
Enhou gives her a small smile. “I always am,” she says.  
   
Her rebellious phase as a teen had taught her more of the tricks of petty criminals than she’d care to admit, and she jimmies the lock on the side door of the building simply enough with a hairpin. Is this too easy, she wonders, wary as she steps inside, before remembering that the things she’s after most likely don’t mind a hapless human intruder now and then. Like flies in a spider’s web, probably.  
   
It’s bizarrely clean inside, is her thought right after. A place sitting unattended for so long, empty and stalled in its construction should at the very least be dusty, and yet it’s perfectly spotless. The marble flooring of the lobby is beautiful – white threaded through with “cracks” of onyx black. She calls the elevator on a whim and is surprised to find it not only installed but operational, the doors immediately opening in front of her with a  _ding_. She steps in after a moment of hesitation and hits the button for the uppermost floor available, floor twelve. Starting at the top and working your way down is the best approach for sweeping a place.  
   
Without the glow of streetlamps spilling in, it’s darker here on the upper floors. She lights up her phone in order to peer around the room she’s stepped into – an expansive, open space with panes of coloured glass intended to separate offices. There’s nothing here, as to be expected, except –  
   
A single high-backed armchair, sitting alone in the center of the hall. She approaches it with a frown.  
   
“My, my, what’s this?” a drawling voice says, from somewhere to her right.  
   
She stops. Her hand strays reflexively for her gun, strapped tight against her ribs so as to be as hidden as possible, but she remembers herself just in time. Smoothes a hand down her shirtfront instead.  
   
“Someone’s come to visit us,” another voice says, from her left this time. “How nice.”  
   
She takes a step back as two figures come into view.  
   
They’re beautiful, she thinks, and promptly shakes herself. For that to be her first thought… These can only be the creatures she’s after. A man and a woman, each dressed all in black. The man is tall, silver-haired, with the posture and gait of someone with absolute confidence in everything he does. The woman’s hair is like a black curtain framing her face, her lips a dark red, her dress cut in such a way to be as alluring as possible. As dark as their eyes are, there seems to be an inexplicable, unearthly brightness behind them all the same.  
   
“Sorry,” Enhou says cautiously. “I didn’t mean to disturb anyone. This place seemed empty to me.”  
   
“Oh, no,” the man says, smiling in a manner that’s almost affable. “Don’t worry about it. We quite enjoy company, don’t we?”  
   
“We do.” They’re moving closer, the man circling behind Enhou as his lady companion approaches her head-on, and Enhou forces herself to remain where she is.  
   
‘Forces’ might be a strong word, actually. Despite her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, she’s finding it remarkably easy to simply stand there and let them come nearer. An odd calmness is stealing over her body, even as her mind yells at her stay alert.  
   
The woman smiles as she reaches out to touch Enhou’s cheek, with fingers that are eerily cool. “Goodness, you’re an attractive one,” she says. Her voice is low and soft, like being wrapped in crushed velvet. “What a fortuitous meeting this is.”  
   
The man’s presence is directly behind her, now, his hand brushing her hair back from her face, and she can feel him leaning in close to observe her.  
   
“What’s someone like you doing here?” he asks.  
   
She tilts her head to look back at him. “I could ask you two the same question.”  
   
He laughs, a flash of white teeth. “Oh, you know. Just waiting around for our destined someone.”  
   
“And here you are,” the woman says, turning Enhou’s gaze back to her with a light touch.  
   
“We’ve just met, haven’t we?”  
   
“I suppose so,” the man says, humming thoughtfully. “But that’s how destiny works, you know. It doesn’t take long.”  
   
“And we already know so much about you.” The woman is staring deep into her eyes – unblinking and hypnotic. Her other hand drifts up to rest just above Enhou’s heart, fingers tracing along the line of her collarbone. “We can see it all. We’re a bit lonely here, and you… You’re lonely, too, aren’t you?”  
   
“Lonely?” Enhou echoes. Her mind is starting to feel strangely muddled and hazy. The touch of these creatures, which had seemed cool at first, is now pleasantly warm. She must have been mistaken. She can feel the outline of the man’s hand where it is suddenly curled around her hip.  
   
“People always leave you, don’t they?” the woman says. “They just never seem to understand. That your work will always come first for you. They expect you to drop it all for them, and get so angry when you don’t.” Her thumb brushes the corner of Enhou’s lips, her expression pitying and gentle. “And if it’s not that, then it’s the insecurity that drives them off. They expect to find some weak, maidenlike softness underneath, if they work at you hard enough. A puzzle for them to solve. Not realizing that there never was a puzzle. That you are as you appear.”  
   
Yes, Enhou thinks distantly. That is always how it goes. And is she lonely? She supposes she must be. All those failed relationships will do that to anyone. All those expectations that she apparently let down, even though they were the ones who built them.  
   
“But we would never leave you,” the man murmurs.  
   
“No, we wouldn’t,” the woman agrees. “We know what you need. We can be exactly the kind of companions you’ve always wanted. Wouldn’t you like that? To have us with you forever? No one else will ever understand you like we do.”  
   
 _I just think it’s nice, how much you care about this city._  
   
Enhou blinks.  
   
It’s like she’s just been doused in icy cold water, cutting through the fog laying over her. Like an alarm has just begun to ring in the back of her mind. She remembers, in an instant, why she is here and what she is meant to be doing.  
   
“You’re kind to offer,” she says, keeping her face as impassive as possible, reaching her hand up and under the hem of her jacket to wrap her fingers around the hilt of the pistol. “But I think I’ve managed to find someone else who might stick with me.”  
   
She draws her gun and spins away from the two creatures in the same instant, leveling it at them and pulling the trigger once, twice, before they have the time to react. The screech they let out is earsplitting and inhuman as one bullet sinks into the woman’s leg, the other burying itself into the man’s shoulder. She’d examined the bullets before loading them into the pistol – etched with strange markings, she can only assume there’s some kind of power beyond her comprehension woven into the metal. And that theory is only supported now, as the wounds she’s inflicted on these creatures seem to be smoldering as they back away, all traces of softness and beauty gone from their faces, twisted in anger as they are. The light behind their eyes has faded to leave only flat, empty black.  
   
“So this was a ploy, then?” the woman says, her lip curled. “Are you trying to hunt us, human?”  
   
Enhou keeps her gun trained on her, eyes flicking back and forth between them. “Doubt I’d have much chance on my own. More like… I’m helping out some friends with a common goal.”  
   
At that cue, two wolves lunge from the shadows behind her, moving quick enough so as to be a blur. It’s only when the other two step out to form a protective wall of sorts in front of her that she gets a good look, and she can feel herself freeze up, the breath caught in her throat. Whatever she imagined, it wasn’t this. Where they were once comparable to actual animals, now they are bipedal – huge, hulking, broad-shouldered, all of them standing at least seven feet. Their paws are claws, now, long and sharp like a human’s hands disfigured.  
   
One in front of her is a deep black, dark enough to almost appear blue when the low light strikes it just right. The other… is a soft brown. It turns back to look at her, its teeth bared and snarling and its silver eyes wild.  
   
“…Rian?” Enhou says quietly.  
   
The wolf simply looks at her. Its expression seems to relax just a bit before it turns back to the battle that is now unfolding in front of them, and Rian examines the other two wolves: one a brilliant gold, the other a shade of russet, with one of its arms missing, leaving only a stump at the elbow. The identities of each one are easy enough to put together, now. Except for the fact that she can’t detect anything of their actual personalities in these creatures. She swallows hard as she backs away, hiding herself behind a pillar as the black and brown wolves throw themselves into the fray as well.  
   
It’s a flurry of movement and claws and shadow that she can barely keep up with, but it’s impossible to miss when the brown wolf and the succubus go crashing through the ceiling and up on to the next, unfinished floor, shaking the entire building and sending debris falling onto her head.  
   
“Shit,” she hisses. Somehow, she knows that being without backup is a bad idea for these creatures. And the other three are all preoccupied by the demonic form the incubus has taken on, red-faced and bat-like and seemingly brimming with power that she can feel even from this distance, like wading through something thick and murky. She pulls herself through it and makes a dash for the emergency stairwell that leads up to the next floor.  
   
Or, what exists of the next floor. The sudden change into open night air is jarring. The staircase even cuts off, incomplete in its path to the landing, and she’s forced to make a haphazard leap, hitting the foundation hard and skinning her hands as she hauls herself up. It’s uncanny up here, with only the metal beam outline of where a building should be surrounding her. The slight breeze that buffets her feels like it’s threatening to toss her off. Vol City stretches out in miniature in every direction, a dark, jumbled patchwork of semi-recognizable landmarks and muddled lights.  
   
And in the middle of it all, the wolf and the demon facing each other down. Unlike the fight below, this one seems far more calculated. A quiet standoff. She can almost follow it with her eyes as the wolf breaks the tension to move across the open space, slamming its opponent into one of the steel support beams, grip tight around the throat. But the succubus creature is changing, much like her companion had. Growing spider-like appendages from her back, her face morphing beyond recognition until there are clicking mandibles where a mouth should be. She stabs at the wolf with one of her spindly legs, who jumps back with a growl just in time.  
   
Enhou watches the wolf get pushed back, then counter, then go on the defensive again. She thinks for a moment that she can see victory tipping in its favor until suddenly the tide has changed again and it’s letting out a howl of pain, red dripping through its claws as it clutches its upper arm.  
   
“Damn it,” Enhou mutters, pressing herself against one of the support beams and leveling her gun once more at the demon, which is advancing on the wolf with killing intent evident in its movements.  
   
She squeezes the trigger and watches with satisfaction as the blast takes one of the creature’s spidery legs clean off. It rounds on her, now, fury in its eyes, and –  
   
The wolf seizes the opportunity to impale its claws straight through the demon’s chest and sink its teeth deep into its throat.  
   
The thing doesn’t shriek this time. Maybe it’s no longer capable. Its eyes simply widen before it seemingly melts away, leaving nothing behind but a few fabric-like scraps of shadow that drift down on the air. That and the black, oily “blood” that drips from the wolf’s claws and mouth.  
   
Enhou lets out a shuddery breath. Relief staggers her. It’s over, then. The gun falls from her hands with a clatter. Down below the sounds of fighting have quieted, too.  
   
Except the wolf in front of her still seems to be seeking out an unseen enemy. Its claws rake through the empty air, a strange sheen to its eyes, lips pulled back from its teeth.  
   
“Hey,” Enhou calls, wariness prickling at the back of her neck. “It’s fine now! They’re gone.”  
   
It doesn’t seem to hear her. Is this what she meant by ‘animalistic’? Blindly gone berserk and panicky, sensing danger that isn’t there anymore? Enhou takes a few hesitant steps closer to the creature, close enough to see the way its chest is rising and falling far too quick as it breathes.  
   
“Hey,” she says again. “Rian.”  
   
That at least seems to get some acknowledgement out of the wolf. It turns to look at her, pausing in its frenzied hunt.  
   
Another few steps. It’s something else, to stand directly in its shadow, craning her neck to look into its eyes. The full size of it looms over her. It could do worse to her than it did to that demon right this moment, and there would be nothing she could do to prevent it. The black blood is still dripping from its jaws as she slowly reaches up a hand to touch the soft fur of its muzzle.  
   
“ _Rian_ ,” she says. Firmly, this time, and finally there is a flicker of recognition across the wolf’s face.  
   
A minute later and she is standing there in front of her, naked and shivering with her arm dripping blood, her pupils wide and staring. She wipes the black substance from her lips with the back of her hand, trying to muster an amused sort of grimace, but instead it falters. She sinks down to the concrete flooring on unsteady legs. Enhou hurries to whip her jacket off, kneeling down to drape it over her. Not much of a covering, but it’s something, at least.  
   
“Your jacket again?” Rian’s voice is a bit hoarse. “I’m going to get used to this kind of thing if you keep it up.”  
   
“Maybe that’s what I want,” Enhou says, giving her a pointed look.  
   
Rian blinks, startled. “You…” She swallows visibly. “You never let up, do you? You’re worse than Takeru.” A beat of hesitation, and then: “It’s not usually… like that, I swear. Fighting those things must have messed with my head, or something. I’m – sorry. That you had to see all that. I could’ve hurt you.”  
   
Enhou shakes her head. “You didn’t, though. I knew you wouldn’t.” When Rian still looks troubled, she continues: “Missions always have a few complications. But we did what we came here to do, in the end. And everyone’s alive to see it. That’s what matters.”  
   
Rian rubs the leather of Enhou’s jacket between her fingers absentmindedly. “Do you think… there actually is a future for this kind of thing? Humans and wolves working together, like how it used to be?”  
   
Enhou hums thoughtfully, reaching out to touch her jawline, sliding her fingers back to curl around the nape of her neck. “I hope so,” she says, and leans in to kiss her, long and slow, tasting something that is wholly like blood but also not, like blackened rust with a not-unpleasant sweetness beneath it, that is still there when Rian smiles against her lips.


End file.
